Why Compact Cannot Reduce File Size

On our Lotus Domino server, it has been defined a scheduled job to perform compact task for the Lotus Notes Mailboxes (NSF files) during non-peak hours. After finishing the compact, I can see that the file’s size of databases was being reduced. Lately, I notice that the file size doesn’t reduce any more.

When I did a “load compact” manually on server, I also see that the file’s size wasn’t reduced and there was no error prompted.

After doing much research on the internet, I realized that the change of behavior was due to the fact that I enabled the transaction logging on the Domino server recently.

Before I dwell down to the point, let me fist highlight that there are three styles of compacting:
[1] In-place compacting with space recovery (means –b option)
[2] In-place compacting with space recovery and reduction in file size (means –B option)
[3] Copy-style compacting

(For detailed description, you may refer to URL http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=0&uid=swg27006573)

Here are how Domino works and behaves…

If the transaction logging is not enabled (by default) and when you run Compact without specifying options, Domino uses “In-place with file size reduction” style of compacting on databases. So, the file size of database is reduced.

On the other hand, if the transaction logging is enabled and when you run Compact without specifying options, Domino uses “In-place” style of compacting on databases. That explains why the file size of the database can't not be reduced after the compact done.

So, in order to achieve file’s size reduction, I have explicitly used the “load compact –B” option for compacting the databases.

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Video tutorials (free)-- let you read less but learn more

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How To Disable Telnet For Linux User

If you need to disable the telnet function for a particular UNIX/Linux user, it can be done by editing the /etc/passwd file and replace the shell (say /bin/bash) for that user’s entry with something else (say say /dev/null).

If it doesn’t work, then do these:-

- Login as the user.
- Edit the .profile (with vi editor) and add in the last line “exit”.
- Save the .profile.

With that, if the user tries to do a telnet, he will be automatically kicked out.

 

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Mobile messaging for Lotus Domino

Now, the Lotus Notes user can look forward to have the push mail service using a mobile device if the following criteria are met:-

- Lotus Domino 8.0.1 server or later (Lotus Domino 8.5 will be required for Nokia S60 support).
- Mobile device running under Windows Mobile (WM) 5.0, 6.0 and 6.1 releases. Or, Nokia mobile device running under S60 (Symbian OS platform).

To support pushmail access on the mobile device, you just simply need to install the IBM Lotus Notes Traveler software onto the device. After that, with some simple configuration on the device itself, it will be able to do the real-time replication (automatic) of Lotus e-mail (including attachments), calendar, address book, journal and To-Do-Lists.

With this major development of IBM's efforts, IBM has expanded the mobile support for the Lotus software portfolio (at no additional cost). In other words, the Lotus Notes user no longer needs to reply on Blackberry to pull email from Domino server, which requires additional infrastructure, overhead and cost.

To have a better picture about Lotus Notes Traveler on mobile, you may refer to the video clip below:-

References:-
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/21856/1127
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/notes/traveler.html

How To Update Virus Definition

Virus definition file (also called signature file) is basically a database that contains the virus code (the signature) of those known viruses. To detect a virus, the antivirus program looks for these code strings in executable programs.

In addition, the virus definition file also contains repair information about all the discovered viruses so that the antivirus program knows how to remove the virus from the directories and registry in the inflected computer.

There are many new viruses and security risks being introduced into the computer community every day. In order for the antivirus program knows to how detect and clean the most recent viruses, the virus definition file must be updated regularly to have the latest information.

For Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition (for Norton as well), there are two ways of update the virus definitions:-
1. Live Update
2. Intelligent Updater

Live Update
It is the preferred method for the virus definition update as it is easy to use.

If your computer is configured as an unmanaged client, then it can be configured to get the update automatically from Symantec virus definition’s server.

If your computer is configured as a managed client (Live Update option may be grayed out), the “virus definition” update is most likely getting from a central, internal server in your company.

In any time, if you need to get ad-hoc update from the server, you can just simply click the “Live Update” button to trigger the download (as shown below).

Intelligent Updater
The Intelligent Updater file is an executable file (EXE file) to use as an alternative to LiveUpdate for updating virus definitions.

It is less convenient as compared with LiveUpdate, because it is a manual process. It also needs a larger download (say, bigger than 35 MB) that may be inconvenient if you have a slow internet connection (e.g. dial-up).

If your Symantec AntiVirus on your computer is configured as a managed client, it will not able to get the virus definitions from the company’s server when your computer is not connecting to the office network (for example, working on your notebook from home).

In that case, the only choice is to download the Intelligent Updater directly from the internet server and get the update.

The URL to the Symantec Security Response Web site to download the Intelligent Updater is as follows:-

http://www.symantec.com/business/security_response/definitions/download/index.jsp